In other micro-climate change news.
Because of the dryer conditions the ground has been shrinking and cracking right across the Auckland region. This has effected footpaths and in some circumstances even house foundations and retaining walls.

Landscape contractors are looking forward to a big boom in retaining wall construction, especially when the rain, when it does come, gets into the cracks in the ground.

Playing fields are very hard for this time of year.

Will this result in more sports injuries?

Has anyone in the media looked into this?

I am no expert. And all these things may have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. But who would know? All the journalists who should be asking these hard questions have gone silent.

Glad to see that the propganda is being rolled out…What a load of nonsense.

Yes the skies are the result of CC /sarc, but what else is contributing to climate change?

The journos have gone silent (because the media owners have instructed it, but no worries they can’t keep geo-engineering off limits much longer, its become too obvious, so they drip it into the mindset, using various methods, like pics of dramatic sky to fool people with ), because if it gets stirred up, then they are going to have to talk about geo-engineering Jenny, perhaps then people will really begin to join those dots.

You can’t discuss these subjects in a silo, they’re linked!

Oh and Jenny – Officially summer finished some time back, but hard ground is not uncommon at time of year, which is why we have schedule cricket tours, like the one just finished eh!

This government is on the ropes. Scandal after scandal has left its major asset, the affable John Key, looking tired, harried and confused. His inability to tell lies convincingly has been embarrassingly exposed with the Ian Fletcher/GCSB scandal; for the first time, Key has been faced with relentless and concerted questions from journalists, who can sense blood.

Regular listeners to the Panel will know that, almost always, at least one of the two guest Panelists will be a right winger and reflexively a Key supporter, and that the host (usually Jim Mora) will almost always support that right winger. So the program is usually stacked against the liberal or left voice, if there happens to be one that day.

However, as has been shown by the likes of Gordon Campbell, Anna Chinn, Bomber Bradbury and Gordon McLauchlan, one liberal voice having the gumption to challenge the indolent and poorly thought out assertions of right wingers can be extremely effective.

So it would be enormously damaging to the Government, and enormously helpful for the rest of us, if an articulate person went on National Radio’s Panel show and simply restated the facts of this scandal, eloquently and courageously.

Unfortunately, though, the representative for the liberal left today was one Scott York….

JIM MORA: First topic today is, unsurprisingly, the Ian Fletcher/GCSB scandal. John Key has had ANOTHER memory lapse; how damaging could this one be for the Government?SCOTT YORK: I, uh, dunno. You know, uhhh, the Labour government had its problems too, with Clare Curran. But ummmm, I dunno. Yeah, I guess….JOCK ANDERSON: This is a story that has been promulgated by twenty-five wild-eyed journalists.JIM MORA: John Armstrong from the New Zealand Herald joins us. John, is Jock Anderson correct when he says it’s just twenty-five wild-eyed journalists that are pushing this story?JOHN ARMSTRONG:[speaking slowly to indicate great seriousness] It’s a bit wider than that, but not much.JIM MORA: So you think it’s a bit too much to suggest there is a danger of oligarchy in this country? Thats too long a bow to draw.JOHN ARMSTRONG: Yes, but this is corrosive. This will worry the National Party hierarchy.MORA: It sounds impulsive what he did, saying “I’ll pick up the phone and ring the guy.” So this will not hurt John Key. As we said yesterday, people will say this is the way the world works. It will not hurt John Key will it.ARMSTRONG: It doesn’t go far beyond the Beltway.JOCK ANDERSON: As Rob Hosking said in the NBR, this is only of concern to the Bowen Triangle, which is the Wellington equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle!MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha! John Armstrong on the Panel! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Topic 2: The Census…
Jock Anderson spends several minutes boasting about how he did not fill out his census form. Then Jim Mora decides it’s time to turn into Mr. Nasty, except he doesn’t do it with much conviction….

JIM MORA: Carol Slappendel is the General Manager of the 2013 Census. She joins us now. I see you are still allowing people to fill in their census forms more than a month late. Shouldn’t we call it the March-April census and dispense with the urgency of the night?CAROL SLAPPENDEL: Actually, the completion rate has been exceptionally good. And there has been a very high number of people doing it online.MORA:[skeptically] Yeah. Can I ask you about that? How did it go in Oamaru where participating online was ENCOURAGED?CAROL SLAPPENDEL: Very well, actually.MORA: Carol Slappendel, thank you. It’s 4:30, time for the news.

….4:30 News and Weather….

JIM MORA: Time for the Soapbox. What’s been on your mind, Scott?SCOTT YORK Ummm, I’d like to give a bit of a plug for a new website. Ummm, it’s a satirical site called The Civilian.JIM MORA: The Civilian?SCOTT YORK: Yes. Some say it’s a Kiwi equivalent of the Onion.JIM MORA: It’s nice to see a blog with a sense of humor, isn’t it. Some of these political sites have no sense of humor.SCOTT YORK: Yeah! Ummmm. Yeah.JIM MORA: Good luck to them! Jock what’s been on YOUR mind?JOCK ANDERSON: Well, this is something I complained about on this program a few weeks ago, and that is the way that Len Brown’s Auckland Council keeps shutting its citizens out on the weekends. I object to the Auckland Council closing down the city centre for these events all the time. Last weekend Queen Street was closed for a wild-eyed bunch of sweaty zealots racing in the Golden Mile.

MORA: Ummm, thank you, ummmm, Jock. I’d like to move onto North Korea. THAT’s a serious topic. The state’s warlike rhetoric follows the recently imposed U.N. sanctions. Are you getting a bit worried now?JOCK ANDERSON: I am.JIM MORA: Just before we get Professor Al Gillespie, Scott, your thoughts.SCOTT YORK: Ummm, North Korea is such an odd country, ummmmm, cut off from the rest of the world. We’ve got a new, inexperienced North Korean leader, ummmmm, next thing you know, ummmm, it’s World War Three.JIM MORA: Are we right to be nervous, do you think, Al?AL GILLESPIE: America is being particularly belligerent at this point.JOCK ANDERSON: Are there any similarities to the Cuban missile crisis?

[This discussion continues for a further few minutes, then the music starts to swell, signalling the impending end of the show…]

MORA: Just before we go, your thoughts on the Christchurch Cathedral?SCOTT YORK: Ummm, ahhhh, I dunno. Ummm.MORA: It’s five o’clock. Gotta go!

No it’s not. He gives the impression that talking to Carol Slappendel took all of 2 minutes, but it was much much longer than that.

Which means so far, every single transcript of Morrissey’s that I’ve read where I had actually heard the interview itself, he has mischaracterised in some way. So I don’t trust anything he writes any more.

You might have a poor reception down there Lanth, I listen to ‘the panel’ most days and when Morrissey reports on it he gets it 99.9% correct 99.9% of the time.

With regard to the Carol Slappendel segment he did omit the tired ramblings of Jock Anderson who tried to put listeners asleep with his paranoid recollections of avoiding filling out census forms (he must have much to hide).

I always enjoy Morrissey reporting on ‘the panel’ farce and find his version matches what I have heard.

“You might have a poor reception down there Lanth, I listen to ‘the panel’ most days and when Morrissey reports on it he gets it 99.9% correct 99.9% of the time.”

No, all I’ve said is that every single transcript for which I’ve read that I had also heard the actual interview at the very least mischaracterised what went on, if not completely changed the works spoken so as to not be a transcript at all.

Note that that is a sample of about 4. But 4 out of 4 is not good.

“With regard to the Carol Slappendel segment he did omit the tired ramblings of Jock Anderson”

Um, no, he omitted many question and answer responses from Carol. Perhaps you need to check your reception.

He gives the impression that talking to Carol Slappendel took all of 2 minutes, but it was much much longer than that.

I think any intelligent reader would realise that I had not included everything these people said on the programme. My purpose is of course to capture something of the pervading tone of shallowness and flippancy. My approach is little different from the great Tom Frewen’s legendary Today in Parliament—which can still, by the way, be heard on Community Radio stations.

Which means so far, every single transcript of Morrissey’s that I’ve read where I had actually heard the interview itself, he has mischaracterised in some way.

I have mischaracterised nothing. In the transcript that heads this thread, I have endeavoured to capture at least a hint of the essential nastiness of Jock Anderson, the refusal to be serious of Jim Mora, and the timidity and mealy-mouthedness of Scott York. You are trying to say that is not a valid approach, and that every single thing they say should have been included. That’s nonsense.

So I don’t trust anything he writes any more.

In March 2011 you trusted the demonstrable lies of the Japanese government and you trusted the integrity of the Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe when he came on television to insist there was “absolutely no danger” from radiation around Tokyo. I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether they trust YOUR judgement.

“Yes it is, and you know it is, just as you knew my rush transcript of Hekia Parata’s embarrassingly inept interview back in August 2011 was accurate…./open-mike-30082011/#comment-369467”

Sorry, I don’t “know it” because what you have produced and claimed to be a transcript, is, to borrow one of your words, “demonstrably” not a transcript.

“I think any intelligent reader would realise that I had not included everything these people said on the programme. ”

No, any intelligent reader who reads something that purports to be a transcript would expect it to be a transcript. There is absolutely nothing in your post that suggests the sections that show dialogue are not actually the complete dialogue that was spoken. All you need to do is put “…” in there or “later” or anything, but you deliberately choose not to do so.

“I have mischaracterised nothing. In the transcript that heads this thread, I have endeavoured to capture at least a hint of the essential nastiness of Jock Anderson, the refusal to be serious of Jim Mora, and the timidity and mealy-mouthedness of Scott York. You are trying to say that is not a valid approach, and that every single thing they say should have been included. That’s nonsense.”

You mischaracterised the interview with Carol Slappendel by making it look like Mora had her on for less than a minute to ask her one question and then bid her off. That DID NOT HAPPEN and so you are mischaracterising what did happen. It really is very straight forward.

“In March 2011 you trusted the demonstrable lies of the Japanese government and you trusted the integrity of the Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe when he came on television to insist there was “absolutely no danger” from radiation around Tokyo. I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether they trust YOUR judgement.”

Sure, I’ve no problem with that. All you have to do is show that the people flying in those flights to Japan have somehow gone on to suffer ill health effects. Then you might actually have some evidence.

Even Key’s stuff-ups on sideshow stories protect him from the bigger stories; GCSB beltway oddity covers New Zealand’s largest single pending industrial closure, and also smothers the big MRP prospectus launch together with price range. He may go down in history for nothing except being our luckiest PM.

True, no one gives a toss about “the process”.
Key rung his mate,big deal.
It’s widely accepted, that it’s who you know, not what you know when it comes to getting a job, people don’t have an issue with that, it’s just the way the world works.

Certain types love it, because it validates the lies they tell to themselves, and others on a daily basis!

Thats why lying is *no big deal* – Look at BM, liar apologist, pity those around you son, cos you is a liar too, which is why you are looking at semantics, and offerign excuses for the biggest liar ever to lead a government in NZ history, which is no mean feat for JK!

so from now on whenever key says ‘to the best of my recollection’ or ‘from what i can recall’ you are gonna believe him? what a sucker. also, ‘key rang his mate’, key still has not confirmed they were ‘mates’, thats just what everyone knows but key wont admit it, just weasel words about his mum & grant robertson & everything else. why didnt he, when first asked, say ‘yep, we are mates, so what?’, maybe hes incapable of telling the truth? his first instinct is to lie, duck & cover. speaking of which, hes on radiolive this afternoon with willie & jt, could be interesting but usually its just whitewash & weak.

The Liberal Conspiracy (which claims to be the most popular left of centre political blog in the UK), has an article reporting on a poll about people’s views on climate change.

Last week the site Carbon Brief released information on their extensive energy and climate change polling, which you can read about on their site. …

1. Doubts about climate change aren’t rising …

2. ‘Belief’ in climate doesn’t mean that much anyway
One of my favourite charts is from a post-Copenhagen poll that showed that, even among those who said they don’t think global warming has been proven, a majority wanted a reduction in worldwide emissions….
2. ‘Belief’ in climate doesn’t mean that much anyway
One of my favourite charts is from a post-Copenhagen poll that showed that, even among those who said they don’t think global warming has been proven, a majority wanted a reduction in worldwide emissions.

That’s what I like about Key, he’s a go getter, bugger the process that’s for dull old people, public servants and Labour party politicians.
He didn’t get rich sitting around writing stuff in triplicate and filling out a zillion forms, he gets out there and makes it happen.

Jesus H Christ! Next you’ll be talking about how firm his buttocks are and how flowers grow where his feet touch the earth. You bloody right wingers make me think that you have real daddy issues, thinking that everything can be solved by a man’s man with a firm hand.

BM – Knows little to nothing about Keys career, or how he made his money, other than what he reads on wiki or the herald!

If he did, then he would know that same system, which made Key *rich*, by stealing, because thats what the banking system is, theft of other peoples lives/futures, BM would understand that same financial systems are taking him, his mates, and his family down too!

I may have been a bit over the top there, but that is how the public perceive John Key , which is why he gets away with what he does.
Facts are most people despise politicians, yet Key is still the most liked of all current politicians by a loooong way and that’s because he doesn’t behave like a politician.

Ah yes. Everyone loves a go-getter who says damn the process … right up until it’s your house being compulsorily acquired or your kids getting expelled or your taxes getting raised or the Police knocking on your door.

If you have lived in this country long enough you hear every vile, disgusting comment made against Māori – every low and slimey slur and put-down and even though we have heard it all, it still hurts to hear another.

We let these people off too lightly – and trying to get out of it by using the ‘joke’ defence is as bad as using the ‘should have thought harder’ defence – they are not a defence they are just useless excuses.

“How are you ‘inducted / familiarised’ with your statutory duties arising from the Public Records Act 2005?”
_______________________________________________________________________________

Prime Minister of New Zealand
John Key

Dear Prime Minister,

Given your previous background at the highest levels of the private sector/ banking and finance corporate world (being the former Head of Derivatives for Merrill Lynch, and a former Foreign Exchange Advisor for the New York Federal Reserve), it may have been your custom and practice to ‘do’ internationally significant deals over dinner or over the phone?

However, you are now Prime Minister of New Zealand, ‘perceived’ to be ‘the least corrupt country in the world’ (according to the 2012 Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’, along with Denmark and Finland).

As New Zealand is ‘perceived’ to be ‘the least corrupt country in the world’ – we should arguably be the most ‘transparent’?

Arguably, the laws, regulations and culture which apply in the private, corporate world – are NOT the same which should and do apply to the public sector, of which you are now in charge, as Prime Minister of New Zealand.

May I respectfully remind you of the pivotal legislation which covers the public sector / public service, as outlined on the NZ State Services Commission website:

Part 1
Purpose, other preliminary provisions, and key administrative provisions
Subpart 1—Purpose and other preliminary provisions

3 Purposes of Act

The purposes of this Act are—
(a)to provide for the continuation of the repository of public archives called the National Archives with the name Archives New Zealand (Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga); and

(b)to provide for the role of the Chief Archivist in developing and supporting government recordkeeping, including making independent determinations on the disposal of public records and certain local authority archives; and

(c)to enable the Government to be held accountable by—
(i)ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of central and local government are created and maintained; and
(ii)providing for the preservation of, and public access to, records of long-term value; and

(d)to enhance public confidence in the integrity of public records and local authority records; and

(e)to provide an appropriate framework within which public offices and local authorities create and maintain public records and local authority records, as the case may be; and

(f)through the systematic creation and preservation of public archives and local authority archives, to enhance the accessibility of records that are relevant to the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand and to New Zealanders’ sense of their national identity; and

(g)to encourage the spirit of partnership and goodwill envisaged by the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi), as provided for by section 7; and

1) What is / was the process by which you were ‘inducted / familiarised’ with this above-mentioned key legislation which now covers your statutory duties as the Prime Minister of New Zealand?

2) What was / is the role of the NZ State Services Commission, in ensuring that you were ‘inducted / familiarised’ with this above-mentioned key legislation, which now covers your statutory duties as the Prime Minister of New Zealand?

3) What is / was the process by which you were ‘inducted / familiarised’ with the above-mentioned Public Records Act 2005, which now covers your statutory duties as the Prime Minister of New Zealand to:

“enable the Government to be held accountable by—

(i)ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of central and local government are created and maintained ”

4) What was / is the role of the NZ State Services Commission, in ensuring that you were ‘inducted / familiarised’ with the above-mentioned Public Records Act 2005, which now covers your statutory duties as the Prime Minister of New Zealand to:

“enable the Government to be held accountable by—

(i)ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of central and local government are created and maintained”

5) How many staff are employed in your ‘Prime Minister’s Department’?

6) Please confirm that you have staff in your ‘Prime Minister’s Department’, who have the responsibility for ‘diary notes’ / memos / minutes (and the like), of affairs of State, in order to ensure that your above-mentioned statutory duties as Prime Minister of New Zealand, under the Public Records Act 2005, are carried out in a proper way.

7) Please provide the information which explains why you are relying upon your (proven to be unreliable) memory, for matters such as your role in the appointment of Ian Fletcher as Director of the GCSB, when you have a statutory duty as Prime Minister to:

“..enable the Government to be held accountable by—
(i)ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of central and local government are created and maintained”

Wasn’t that the reason she got so pissed at John Campbell regarding the corn gate incident because he altered the questions during the interview and made her look like a bit of a clown because she didn’t have a pre constructed answer.

Anyway it makes sense to know the questions before hand, especially since every reporter is out there trying to get a scoop and make a name for themselves.

No.
If I recall correctly, it is routine for exclusive interview topics to be identified beforehand, so the interviewee can prepare. I think the corngate one pissed clark off because they were broad with the topic outline (said it would be about nz horticulture or something), and JC leapt almost immediately into a very narrow field of “on this date GM corn escaped” (or whatever).

yes, key said the omission was an answer to a supplementary question (‘i only had 15 seconds to answer!’), not a written first question. so if he was asked it in writing, he could have told the truth. but didnt someone on the standard say that gerry brownlee answered on behalf of john key another question that was certainly written? is john key biding his time to get out the country before any journalist (i wish) digs up that information.

& yes, not answering questions in parliament, stand ups or to journalists, if we want an honest, factual answer, he will want it in writing first. thats what he said. he even said it as a warning basically. & tv3 have got it in for him.

john key was being ‘boo hoo me’ & how hard it is being prime minister, up at 6:30am, bed at 12:30am, & do you remember what you had for breakfast last week?

I will have a look at it. But it has been running OK for me when I have been scanning it today. I’m currently having a long awaited beer, listening to the news on natrad, and reading comments on the nexus7 – via the cellphone to the net…

I’ve had problems – especially when I was updating the Fletcher post before 6pm-ish. And I couldn’t get the paragraph formation right on the update – looked correct on the “visual”, then no space between the end of the original post and the update on the post actual.

i know, its real hard to listen to. also another funny thing in the john key interview, tamaheri mentioned a news scoop that the australians have told ppl to get out of south korea, & tamaheri asked john key what he was going to do, & john key said ‘why? whats happening over there?’. he didnt know about the bird flu news coming out of china also. but who knows, maybe he was lying again.

and touching on the ancient topic of the PM rarely fronting to National Radio and the increasing evidence that Auckland is New Zealand whilst the rest of us are just potential tourists there, I noticed the Station ID

An interesting perspective on this is the lost revenue for the Crown. There’s over 400,000 households in Auckland and I assume that each one lives in a house so one expects there’s 400k houses of all types. An increase of 12% in the average price would be about $55k per house. That’s a capital gain of $22billion on 400,000 houses, if gains were taxed it would realise tax of around $5billion. And that’s just from Auckland. Quite staggering numbers really.

Hey I have found this ideal investment for the Government. The shares are rock solid and are predicted to give between a 6 and 7.7 % yield each year for the next couple of years. The Government can borrow money at less than this and it could make a real killing. If it acquires all of the shares then it does not have to worry about minority shareholders rights.

Oh wait, we own these fecking things and we are paying merchant bankers huge amounts of money to sell something that we already own to pay down debt that could be paid quicker if we kept control of them.

And, as it happens, the promo material is misleading about how risky these shares are. over to Russel Norman:

The offer document lists risks including the Tiwai Point smelter closing, regulatory changes, and Treaty claims but makes no attempt to quantify these risks or assess their likelihood.

“National has been pushing Kiwis to invest their savings in Mighty River, so it has a duty to properly inform them of the risks,” said Dr Norman.

“There is a very real danger that the closure of Tiwai Point, Treaty claims, and reforms by a future government will reduce the value of these shares significantly but National has failed to give potential investors an estimate of the size of those risks.

I want to give a big thank you to all The Standard especially karol for getting information and links to this Prime Minister of ours and his lies. More to come I’m sure – thanks again.

I also want to say to Bryce Edwards that he is really shows some poor judgement in his (very good) article in NZ Politics daily. Every person who has made comment is quoted by him, such as – whaleoil, kiwiblog, John Minto, Julie Fairey, journalists, The Green Party, all good, but I noticed one group of blogger missing, yes everyone except The Standard and the bloggers who have researched and asked very searching questions about the goings on, in fact some new original information that illuminates seems to come up every day. No, no quoting any of those articles – he’d rather put in Pete George Twice!!! That has got to be a WTF moment if ever there was one – but nothing from over here. I pretty disapointed about that.

Bryce Edwards appears to be working on becoming more “mainstream” and more “commonly acceptable” in my eyes. Maybe he has a high paying job here or in Aus on his mind??? There are fewer and fewer journalists and commentators I bother with or even trust. And it is only the Standard, the Daily Blog and a few others that I still bother to read now.

Listening to Michelle Boag always leaves me underwhelmed. She seems sure to say something crass each time. The discussion I heard on Jim Mora was about class in Britain and New Zealand. The latest strata identification in GB was seven, but that’s the way of the world since the year dot she thinks. Nothing new here, or to concern oneself about.

Her own parents were ‘hard working’ and so she had a good grounding for becoming the idol that she is. This hard working epithet seems a loaded description, there’s a suggestion that they were outstanding and perhaps deserving, because most others weren’t hard working.

If you become deserving through long hours then the caregivers and low income people working multiple jobs should be due for a decent bonus anytime. The figures show that NZs are working long hours. Just as well the pubs are allowed to open all hours unless there is lots of hoo hah about it. What about rewarding these low-paid hard working people with a Christmas bonus for not being layabouts like most of those beneficiaries under 65, possibly make that 70? And could volunteers doing a minimum period for community and social betterment be included?

They must have been talking about the article Draco posted on a couple of days back, based on a major survay. It was different from previous class levels, like the UK Registrar General’s one, used for official stats.

The important thing is that it shows “the precariat” has become a significant class of low income struggling people at the bottom of the system.

Should have put this here rather than on the other topic”
Dr Brian Edwards on the Panel totally agreed with Michelle Boag that the whole fuss about Mr Key was absolutely ridiculous. Should never have happened. He thinks that the behaviour of John Campbell in his interview with Mr Rennie was a disgrace. There was no story here and John Key should get tough and tell ‘em like it is. It is totally understandable for a very busy PM to forget things. After all both Michelle and Brian forget things so why shouldn’t the PM?

I think that the issue was really about how Mr Key handled or mis-handled the situation.

Forget “egalitarianism” in NZ, which Boag and Edwards and Mora tried to imply, has existed, and to some degree still exists (withing limits or boundaries). Boag justified that socialist experiments failed, and that there will always be social classes. Edwards accepted he would now be privileged, but came from a more “egalitarian” background. Mora spoke a lot of common drivel.

In all honesty, there has never been true “egalitarianism” in NZ, although the colonial heritage has provided for a fighting and working mentality of most, if not all, to try to prove they do their best, do survive, or have a right to exist.

Egalitarianism is something different though.

We see the farce of this now, where beneficiaries are largely – and actually by wide parts of society (incl. working poor and “middle class”, whatever that means now) SHAMED for not “pulling their weight”!

Is this “egalitarianism”, or giving all an equal chance to start and succeed?

NO, I am sorry, dear friends, I think that too many in NZ claim something that is a bit of a farce.

It is everyone out there for their own “betterment” and “advantages” as they “see fit”, not much of a truly caring society. It never was. The absence of rigid class systems like in Britain and some other countries does NOT mean there never were any classes here. There clearly have been, and stop dreaming fluffy nonsense, thank you.

Also Maori and Pacifica people, to some degree other new migrants have always been used to do the dirty and undesirable work here, while the “middle class” think they get what they deserve. Look at the many Asians working extra hours now, sometimes on low pay, like Filipinos and Filipinas in supermarkets, elder care and on farms.

NZers who think they are so “great” should wake up, and in some cases feel ashamed!

A shameless Government plug masquerades as a news item
NewstalkZB, Friday 5 April 2013, 8:00 A.M.

“There is NO DANGER that the prospect of the smelter closing will affect the price for Mighty River Power shares!”

No, that was not, as you might think, a Government-paid advertisement; it was a chirpy and bright announcement by one Niva Retimanu reading the 8 a.m. “news” on the government mouthpiece NewstalkZB.

The “news” item that followed that gushing headline consisted of an interview with a very upbeat Brian Gaynor, who amplified the positivity of the advertisement, errr, headline. According to the financial guru, there is nothing but good news to be had from the flogging off of this asset.

There will have been many—maybe most—listeners to that piece of bright positive “analysis” who will have imagined that Gaynor was a trustworthy and disinterested commentator on this matter. In fact, he is the chairman of Milford Asset Management’s Investment Committee and head of Milford’s portfolio management and investment analysis, and as such stands to trouser some handsome fees from his involvement in the selling off of the publicly owned power company.

It is difficult to decide which party comes out of this sordid little charade looking shabbier and dodgier. Nobody really expects serious or reliable journalism from NewstalkZB, but surely Gaynor has a reputation to think about; mouthing dishonest platitudes on a notoriously partisan radio station is certainly not going to enhance it.

. . . In what is believed to be one of the largest ever leaks of financial data, the Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has received nearly 30 years of data entries, emails and other confidential details from 10 offshore havens around the world . . .

Why don’t we hear more from those eloquent Wellington mandarins?
“Focus on Politics”, Radio NZ National, Friday 5 April 2013

I used to think that the people working in the highest echelons of the Wellington civil service were, apart from one or two obvious duds like Christine (Spankin’) Rankin, possessed of superior intellect, impeccable manners and of course an effortlessly superior dress sense. They were seen only occasionally in public, attending symphonic concerts, spectating languidly at cricket tests or race meetings, dining at the most exclusive eateries, and gracing the best and toniest private functions. To this outsider’s untutored eye, these men and their elegant women moved in a rarefied, privileged world, somehow finding the time to read the classics to such a level that they could wittily allude to something from Homer as easily as they could discern whether the wine they had been proffered was worth quaffing. And they could probably speak several languages to boot. In other words they moved on a higher plane than the rest of us mere mortals.

I’ve just heard State Services Commissioner Ian Rennie speaking at length on National Radio’s superb “Focus on Politics” programme. It is now painfully apparent just why there is a long-established tradition of keeping these mandarins away from the public gaze.

Here’s an excerpt, taken at random, but entirely representative of everything else he said….

“We certainly did not have, ahhh um prescience… it was becoming ahhh clear…. there was a need aahhh to change ahhhh, ummmmm, internal structures…. ahhh, ummmm, not just the ahmmmm traditional ahhh ahhh military community ahh, ummmm…”

by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...

From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...

by the Redline blog collective At Redline we are very saddened to hear of the death of Magdalen Burns who passed away on the morning of Friday, September 13 (British time). Magdalen was a great fighter for the rights of women in general and lesbian women in particular, a defender ...

The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...

. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...

Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...

The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...

Private prisons are a stain on humanity. Prison operators explicitly profit from human misery, then lobby for longer prisons terms so they can keep on profiting. And in the US, prison companies run not only local and state prisons, but also Donald Trump's immigration concentration camps. Faced with this moral ...

When National was in power, they were very keen on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - basicly, using private companies to finance public infrastructure as a way of hiding debt from the public. They were keen on using them for everything - roads, schools, hospitals. But as the UK shows, that "service" ...

Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...

by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...

The media is reporting that the (alleged) Labour party sexual assaulter has resigned from their job at Parliament, which means hopefully he won't be turning up there making people feel unsafe in future. Good. But as with everything about this scandal, it just raises other questions. Most significantly: why the ...

By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...

Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...

There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...

Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...

By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...

I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...

Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...

Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...

Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...

This open letter to the Green Party was penned after an opinion piece by Jill Abigail, a feminist and founding member of the party, was censored by the Greens’ leadership. (Redline has reprinted her article here).The intolerance of the Green Party leaders and their acceptance of the misogyny of gender ...

Today is a Member's day, and David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill continues its slow crawl through its committee stage. They're spending the whole day on it today, though the first hour is likely to be spent on voting left over from last time. After that they'll move on ...

An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...

There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...

Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...

During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...

Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...

Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. So how's that going? I was curious, so I asked for all advice about the proposal. ...

As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he ...

Last week, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that he would rather die be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Unfortunately for him, the UK parliament accepted the challenge, and promptly dug one for him. The "rebellion bill" requires him to ask for and secure yet another temporary ...

Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...

by Daphna Whitmore Every Sunday for the past two months unionists from First Union, with supporters from other unions, have set out to the Ihumatao land protest, put up gazebos and gas barbeques, and cooked food for a few hundred locals and supporters who have come from across the country. ...

Newsroom today has an excellent, in-depth article on pine trees as carbon sinks. The TL;DR is that pine is really good at soaking up carbon, but people prefer far-less efficient native forests instead. Which is understandable, but there's two problems: firstly, we've pissed about so long on this problem that ...

Canan Kaftancioglu is a Turkish politician and member of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). Like most modern politicians, she tweets, and uses the platform to criticise the Turkish government. She has criticised them over the death of a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a tear gas grenade during ...

Hi there, just call me Tim.We face tough problems, and I’d like to help, because there are solutions.An Auckand District Health Board member has nominated me for as a candidate for the ADHB, because her MS-related pain and fatigue is reduced with hemp products from Rotorua. Nothing else helped her. If I ...

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has published their report on whether the SIS and GCSB had any complicity in American torture. And its damning. The pull quote is this:The Inquiry found both agencies, but to a much greater degree, the NZSIS, received many intelligence reports obtained from detainees who, ...

Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are ...

For most of the time I was a British MP, my party was out of government – these were the Thatcher years, when it was hard for anyone else to get a look-in. As a front-bencher and shadow minister, I became familiar with the strategies required in a parliamentary democracy ...

by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh On August 29th a video in which veteran FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) commander Iván Márquez announced that they had taken up arms again was released. There was no delay in the reaction to it, from longtime Liberal Party figure and former president Uribe, for ...

Air New Zealand couldn’t believe its luck that this seemingly ideal piece of real estate had so far gone entirely unnoticed. Air New Zealand’s search for a site to build a second Auckland Airport may have made a breakthrough this afternoon, after employees scanning Google satellite imagery spotted a huge, ...

No-one on the anti-capitalist left in this country today puts forward a case that Labour is on the side of the working class. There are certainly people who call themselves ‘socialist’ who do, but they are essentially liberals with vested interests in Labourism – often for career reasons. Nevertheless, there ...

When National was in government and fucking over the poor for the benefit of the rich, foodbanks were a growth industry. And now Labour is in charge, nothing has changed: A huge demand for emergency food parcels means the Auckland City Mission is struggling to prepare for the impending arrival ...

Gayford, pictured here on The Project, before things got wildly out of control. A bold public relations move by the Government to encourage parents to vaccinate their children has gone horribly wrong. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared on tonight’s episode of Three’s The Project, where the plan was for her ...

Mr. Whippy’s business model has driven it down a dark road of intimidation. Residents in major centres around the country are becoming disgruntled by the increasingly aggressive actions of purported ice cream company Mr. Whippy, who have taken to parking on people’s front lawns and doorsteps in a desperate attempt ...

Today the government released its Action Plan for Healthy Waterways, aimed at cleaning up our lakes and rivers. Its actually quite good. There will be protection for wetlands, better standards for swimming spots, a requirement for continuous improvement, and better standards for wastewater and stormwater. But most importantly, there's a ...

Today I appeared before the Environment Committee to give an oral submission on the Zero Carbon Bill. Over 1,500 people have asked to appear in person, so they've divided into subcommittees and are off touring the country, giving people a five minute slot each. The other submitters were a mixed ...

Anti-fluoride activists have some wealthy backers – they are erecting billboards misrepresenting the Canadian study on many New Zealand cities – and local authorities are ordering their removal because of their scaremongering. Many New Zealanders ...

So, those who “know best” have again done their worst. While constantly claiming to be the guardians of democracy and the constitution, and respecters of the 2016 referendum result, diehard Remainers (who have never brought themselves to believe that their advice could have been rejected) have striven might and main ...

Following publication of this article, the Ministry has requested it to be noted that this supplied image is not necessarily representative of what the final house will look like, and it “probably won’t be that nice.” As part of today’s long-anticipated reset of the Government’s flagship KiwiBuild policy, Housing Minister ...

Over the next week or two we will be running three synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Marx began Capital not with a sweeping historical ...

The State Services Commission and Ombudsman have released another batch of OIA statistics, covering the last six months. Request volumes are up, and the core public service is generally handling them within the legal timeframe, though this may be because they've learned to extend rather than just ignore things. And ...

In 1994, I was editing an ambitious street mag called Planet, from a fabled office at at 309 Karangahape Road. The thirteenth issue of the magazine was published in the winter of that year and its cover embodied a particularly ambitious goal: the end of cannabis prohibition.I wanted to do ...

KiwiBuild was one of the Ardern government's core policies. The government would end the housing crisis and make housing affordable again by building 100,000 new homes. Of course, it didn't work out like that: targets weren't met, the houses they did build were in the wrong place, and the whole ...

As the climate crisis escalates, it is now obvious that we need to radically decarbonise our economy. The good news is that its looking easy and profitable for the energy sector. Wind is already cheaper than fossil fuels, and now solar is too:The levellised cost of solar PV has fallen ...

A Crown Asset? For reasons relating to its own political convenience, the Crown pretends to believe that “No one owns the water.” To say otherwise would re-vivify the promises contained in the Treaty of Waitangi – most particularly those pertaining to the power of the chiefs and their proprietary rights ...

Most people would say, no doubt, that they have a pretty good idea of what money is. They live with the reality of money every day. It is what is needed to buy the necessities of life and to maintain a decent standard of living. You get money, they would ...

The article below was an opinion piece that appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Te Awa (the NZ Green Party’s newsletter) and on the Greens website. In keeping with their policy of hostility to women defending women’s right to female-only spaces, Green bureaucrats have since removed the opinion piece. ...

Longer term readers may remember my complaining that, as a political scientist, it is burdensome to have non-political scientists wanting to engage me about politics. No layperson would think to approach an astrophysicist and lecture him/her on the finer details of quarks and black holes, but everybody with an opinion ...

Joining The Fight: Stevan Eldred-Grigg's argument for New Zealand staying out of the Second World War fails not only on the hard-headed grounds of preserving the country’s strategic and economic interests; and not just on the soft-hearted grounds of duty and loyalty to the nation that had given New Zealand ...

On September 27, School Strike 4 Climate will be striking for a future to pressure the government for meaningful climate action. This time, they've asked adults to join them. And now, Lincoln University and Victoria University of Wellington have signed on:Victoria University of Wellington has joined Lincoln University in endorsing ...

Another day, another constitutional outrage in the UK. This time, the government is saying that if parliament passes a law to stop Brexit before being prorogued, they may just ignore it:A senior cabinet minister has suggested Boris Johnson could defy legislation to prevent a no-deal Brexit if it is forced ...

Dum-de-doo. Children across New Zealand have known him for generations as the lovable giraffe who tells them to exercise, hydrate and not to shove lit cigarettes up their nostrils. But a world renowned giraffe expert says we shouldn’t be getting attached to Life Education’s Harold the Giraffe, as he is ...

By Mike Hosking. Yesterday morning, I waltzed into work, and as I walked past the drones aggressively typing out news on the computers I’ve repeatedly asked to be moved further away from, I caught a glimpse of the words “climate change”, and noticed that suspiciously they weren’t in condescending quotation ...

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National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett spent the week claiming a serious cover-up in the Prime Minister's office. She used parliamentary privilege to name three of the Prime Minister's closest advisors who, she says, knew about the sexual assault ...

“The Game Animal Council is concerned that the Government’s second tranche of firearms legislation released today may contain unreasonable provisions that will unfairly impact hunters,” says Game Animal Council Chair Don Hammond. ...

Government policy work on the Carbon Zero bill highlights connections between climate change, carbon sequestration and agriculture. Water quality and allocation are also topical with the release of the Draft Policy Statement for Freshwater Management ...

DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is welcoming this afternoon’s announcement that consultation on Essential Freshwater has been extended by two weeks - but is calling on the Minister to go further. ...

Immigration New Zealand could really benefit from an large investment of money, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the immigration sector. “Instead of spending $25m ...

In recent times there has been no shortage of commentary regarding whistleblowers, with the proposed amendments to the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. These are aimed at strengthening the protection available to whistleblowers in New Zealand. That ...

Gun Control NZ strongly welcomes the comprehensive gun law reform bill and calls on all political parties to support it. Gun Control NZ encourages New Zealanders to let their MPs know they support this Bill, submit to the Select Committee, and ...

Federated Farmers agrees with most of the steps by government to protect people from illegal or irresponsible firearms use. But concerns about pest control and the effectiveness of a register remain. ...

Today at Parliament the NZ Drug Foundation released Taking control of cannabis: A model for responsible regulation, a new report that shows how we can take back control of cannabis from organised crime. ...

Smoking kills 5,000 Kiwis each year, so any government policies to help reduce smoking are a good thing. However, the current approaches are not working nor will the proposed limit on flavoured e-liquid that Associate Minister Salesa announced on the news ...

A petition, that promises a significant and dramatic improvement for the New Zealand economy, was handed to Dr Deborah Russell, the MP for New Lynn today. The petition, signed by over 5,000 New Zealanders addresses our crippling level of debt as well ...

The New Zealand Medical Association welcomes the announcement of an Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. We look forward to working with the newly appointed Chair Hayden Wano and the Commission. “It is vital that the steps to mental health ...

For anyone who even randomly follows the news will know that Hong Kong has been embroiled in demonstrations for months. These sometimes bloody demonstrations initially started as a result of a proposed Extradition Bill whereby there would be special ...

The release yesterday of Port Otago’s financial result for 2019, outlining a 12% increase and profits, including the news that the Chief Executive had received a $100,000 pay increase taking his remuneration to between $610,000-620,000, is like ...

“ I continue to be amazed at the incompetence of this Government when it comes to suicide prevention and mental health. Not only is this Government about to appoint a regional coroner who has a history of under reporting suicides amongst children ...

The Far North District Council (FNDC) and the Whangarei District Council (WDC) have lodged a joint appeal against the Northland Regional Council’s (NRC) omission of precautionary rules in its plan. [1] ...

The Chairman of the Authority, Judge Colin Doherty, has agreed to assist the Hong Kong Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) as a member of an international panel to provide high level advice to the IPCC in relation to its proposed "Thematic ...

“Putting families into motels is a temporary fix for desperate situations, rather than a sustainable solution to problems of poverty and homelessness,” says Scott Figenshow, Chief Executive of Community Housing Aotearoa. He was commenting on media ...

The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS) says the current partial strike by 600 psychologists working in district health boards is a sign that temporary fixes to ongoing workforce shortages in the profession are not working. ...

New Zealand’s contribution to military operations in Malaya and Malaysia from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s will be commemorated in a national service held at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park at 11.00am on Monday 16 September. ...

The resignation of the President of the Labour Party over the sex pest allegations was inevitable. It was inevitable because of his appalling handling of the situation so far; and, because in situations like this where there has to be a “fall guy” ...

Yesterday Hon Grant Robertson Minister of Finance issued a welcome ‘clear directive’ in the press to ensure every Government considers the wellbeing of New Zealanders when creating future budgets . ...

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters today urging that New Zealand condemn the Israeli Prime Minister’s planned annexation of vast tracts of the occupied West Bank of Palestine. ...

Today Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence (NPM) releases its next Te Arotahi paper calling on government to pay even closer attention to the issues of whānau and whakapapa within the criminal justice system. ...

“Technology adoption supports higher productivity growth, higher income growth and increased resources to pay for the things New Zealanders’ value. But the main problem facing New Zealand today isn’t too much technology, it’s not enough,” ...

Federated Farmers is asking nicely - please can the Government immediately extend the timeframe of the Essential Freshwater consultation so we can find a pathway forward that provides for both the health of the water, the health of people and the health ...

Youthline applauds the Government’s commitment to boosting mental health and addiction programmes and its intention to establish a Suicide Prevention Office but we urge swifter action in relation to implementing the programmes announced in the last budget ...

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An Auckland mayoral candidate has broken the internet* by announcing a plan for a monorail around the central city. Who is Craig Lord, and is he serious? Alex Braae spoke to him shortly after his campaign launch to find out.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. ...

Antibiotics are becoming increasingly less effective, so what treatments can we use when the drugs stop working? With help from plant extracts, award-winning company HerbScience is set to breathe new life into how we treat bacterial infections.When Cynthia Hunefeld was just 10 years old, her father was hospitalised with a ...

For some, it symbolises the very backbone of New Zealand’s food culture. But can Kiwi onion dip survive after the factory that makes reduced cream is shut down?The Australian factory that makes Nestlé reduced cream, an integral ingredient in Kiwi onion dip, is shutting down, casting a shadow over the ...

Every year Matariki X brings Māori innovators and entrepreneurs together to share their experiences and inspire one another. Callaghan Innovation’s Vinnie Campbell says the Māori economy’s biggest strengths have nothing to do with money.This story was funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The ...

Today marks the start of Covering Climate Now. To launch the week, the New Zealand climate change minister, James Shaw, writes an open letter to participants in the School Strike 4 Climate ahead of their day of action later this month.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is thanks to ...

National’s new agriculture spokesperson finds himself in one of the party’s most important portfolios, at a time of dramatically increasing tensions in the sector. Will Todd Muller, a man regularly mentioned as a future leader contender, find common ground?Todd Muller’s obsession with politics began with an American encyclopaedia, which his ...

Miss June’s Bad Luck Party was recorded literally between hospital shifts, and their summer schedule includes both festival dates and their frontwoman’s graduation from medical school. We sat down with the band to ask just how, exactly, they’ve survived so far.The first years of life for Tāmaki Makaurau pop-punk quartet ...

The following four short extracts are from A City Possessed: The Christchurch Child Crèche Case by Lynley Hood, which has just been reprinted by Otago University Press. The book was first published in 2001 and won the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The controversial ...

Hamilton councillors have drawn headlines this year for being anti-science and insensitive to terror victims. At a mayoral debate on Wednesday, there were signs a campaign for change is gathering force.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click ...

The Spinoff editor writes on the story that has engulfed NZ politics this week.One of the very few positive things to come out of a hideous week in New Zealand politics has been the sieving-out of the blinkered, partisan zealots. On one side, those who are ready to conjure up ...

In June 2018, Rawinia Higgins was appointed chairperson of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. She’s the first female and the first te reo Māori second-language speaker to hold the role, and during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, she sat down with The Spinoff to talk about her ...

Compulsory New Zealand history in schools is an exciting opportunity but it’s crucial we’re critical of the stories we tell ourselves, writes Dr Aroha Harris. History is not simply an assemblage of facts and evidence. History is also the interrogation of those things.This may be unsettling news for some, including the ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History Deputy Head of School, The University of Queensland Comedy often succeeds where tragedy fails. Fangirls, the pop musical which premiered on Thursday night in Brisbane, is not the first drama to explore ...

On the 10th anniversary of the infamous “Imma let you finish” episode, Josie Adams reflects on what this moment revealed about both Taylor Swift and Kanye West.Cast your mind back a decade: 2009 DJ Earworm was still good, Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the US, Israeli ground ...

Analysis - An astounding week in politics has left Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern carrying responsibility for sorting out the mess the Labour Party is in over the sexual assault allegation, writes Peter Wilson. ...

Police Minister Stuart Nash has confirmed details of a new bill that will create a registry of guns, and new offences and penalties for illegal manufacture, trafficking or changing markings of firearms. ...

Charli XCX has just released her latest album, Charli. The futuristic musician is always looking ahead, and so are her fans. We’ve paired each star sign with their perfect Charli XCX song.Charli XCX burst onto the scene in 2012, when she co-wrote and performed electro-pop headbanger ‘I Love It’ with ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benedict Sheehy, Associate professor, University of Canberra British health-care conglomerate Bupa runs more nursing homes in Australia than anyone else. We now know its record in meeting basic standards of care is also worse than any other provider. This is more than ...

Fable is best remembered for the disastrous, over-the-top promises made by its designer Peter Molyneux. But maybe, Adam Goodall argues, we’re remembering it all wrong.“There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games.” So opens an October 2004 post on the ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $40)Stand by for a review from ...

Tara Ward delved into Māori TV’s impressive OnDemand catalogue and found some of the best TV taonga for your viewing pleasure. From lifestyle shows to documentaries, from current affairs to reality TV, Māori TV has an abundance of quality telly that celebrates and acknowledges the people, places and cultures of ...

A new poem by London-based poet Morgan Bach.Turning, hurtlingI march diligently to sunshine in the parkeverything bathed and turning golden.A woman breathes fire by the folly framing herlike a personal door to hell. Conkers are pitched from high boughsto break and give up fruit, a spire emergent from the baring ...

Simon Day learns about the history and power of Chinese five-spice. Both the origins of Chinese five-spice and the flavour itself are a little mysterious. My internet investigations revealed the powder’s name could be in reference to the use of five spices (although this often grows to six or seven), or ...

Revelations around alleged sexual assault by a Labour staffer and the party inquiry into his behaviour have dominated the week. Alex Casey and Mihi Forbes join Gone By Lunchtime to survey the damage.Alex Casey, author of the Spinoff feature published on Monday, “A Labour volunteer alleged a violent sexual assault ...

In the fourth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect AI has on our lives, Russell Brown speaks to Ana Arriola, general manager and partner at Microsoft AI and Research, about ethics and transparency in tech.Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below.To download this ...

Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Labour Party sexual assault allegations Andrea Vance (Stuff): How to make the Labour abuse scandal ...

Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is running in the Eastern Bay of Plenty Kohi Māori constituency, encounters an unlikely channel of youth engagement.In te ao Māori you’re always looking for tohu, or symbols. They guide you through uncertain territory and help you make sense of the world. The arrival of ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomer Ventura, Senior Lecturer, School of Science and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast The creation of all-male or all-female groups of animals, known as monosex populations, has become a potentially useful approach in aquaculture and livestock rearing. Researchers and those in ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Holmes, Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University Predictably, both major political parties are resisting calls this week for a parliamentary conscience vote to declare a climate emergency in Australia. The resistance is unsurprising because both the Coalition and Labor ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Shi, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University If the Religious Discrimination Bill passes into law, women may find it harder to get an abortion. That’s because health practitioners with an objection to performing the procedure on religious grounds ...